by Jonni Good
“Molly,” I said. “What if Molly tells us that Sonje was at the church yesterday? If the sheriff is there and Sam interprets for him, could Wally get a warrant? John Owen probably put the pills in the drawer in his sideboard, near the hot plate where he fixed the tea.”
Angie thought we needed to slow down a little. There was a problem with the timing. “It’s pretty convenient,” she said, “him being at the diner at exactly the same time as Sonje. And convenient that he had the pills where he could get to them easily. You don’t leave narcotics like that lying around. Anybody could wander into his office whenever they felt like it.”
“That’s true,” Emma said. “He never locks his office. He wouldn’t want a kid to get hold of them.”
I said, “He knew exactly when Sonje was coming, and he knew about the meeting at the diner.” I took a second to mentally edit my next thought to leave out any mention of a baby.
“Carol Kramer would be excited about her friend coming to visit after all these years, but she couldn’t tell anyone except the pastor. If Carol told someone else, the word might get out and her husband would find out she wasn’t really mad at Sonje.”
I leaned forward so I could explain that to Gabe. “Harold Kramer is a real jerk, and he didn’t want Mrs. Kramer to be friends with your mom.” He nodded, satisfied with that answer.
I turned back to Mort. “So, Carol Kramer, and probably Mildred, too, told John Owen that Sonje was coming back to town. And Carol told him that Sonje intended to buy that old house of hers, out south of town, and that she was meeting Sonje at the diner. That’s why the pastor ‘coincidentally’ showed up at the diner at the right time.”
“That’s what that big check was for?” Mort said.
“Yes. I called Carol Kramer and she confirmed it. Sonje bought that house and intended to fix it up and live there. The paperwork’s all done, and the deal is already final.”
I took a deep breath, and laid out the scenario. “Before he went to the diner, the pastor put the ground-up painkillers in the sideboard so he could drop them into a mug when he made Sonje’s tea. He has one of those little grinders for coffee beans next to the coffee pot, and he probably used it to turn the pills into fine powder. He put the rest of the pills back in a locked drawer in his desk.
“He asked Sonje to give him a ride back to the church, and when they get there he invites her in for a cup of tea. She doesn’t want to, but she can’t think of a polite way to refuse. She drank one cup of the herbal tea and then left, because she was in a hurry to get back her kids. Maybe she left her cell phone in his office, or—but maybe not.”
Now I was really getting excited. I leaned forward and said to Mort, “If Molly can prove Sonje was at the church office, can the sheriff get a warrant to search the place?”
Mort pulled himself up off the couch. “I feel trapped in here,” he said. “Go on, move out of my way so I can get to my phone.”
We all got up and put the chairs back where they belonged. Emma and Josie stayed on the couch with the baby, but the rest of us wandered around, or stood quietly, or sat on a chair or the heated bench. There was so much milling and moving that even Molly woke up and raised her head to see what was going on. She didn’t see anything interesting, so she laid it back down again and went back to sleep.
Chance, my old tomcat, decided to wake up, too. He jumped down from the bench and twined himself around my ankles, yelling for his supper. While I poured food into his bowl, Gabe came up to me and said, quietly, “If Mom was buying that house, do I have to live there?”
“No. Mrs. Kramer said your mom wanted to fix it up for sentimental reasons—but most people would want to tear it down. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Mort made his call. He explained my theory to the sheriff, and listened for a minute. Then he said to us, without hanging up, “Wally says it might work, but we have to get Molly out there when the preacher can’t see us. If he knows what we’re up to, he’ll get rid of any evidence before we have a chance to go in and get it. Even then, we still might not find enough for an arrest.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Angie said, “when he’s giving his sermon.”
Mort passed on the suggestion to Wally. It was arranged, and he put the phone down on the kitchen counter.
“OK,” he said. “It’s all on Molly, now. This is a big job for the old mutt.”
“She can do it,” Gabe said. “Molly’s really smart.”
All eyes turned towards the old hound, who was sleeping in her usual spot by the heated bench. Drool was slowly dripping from her sagging lips onto the old plank floor. An ear twitched when she heard her name, sending a ripple across the puddle of spit.
“I’m hungry,” Mort said. “Sam, I thought you were going to cook supper.”
Josie got up from the couch, gave Mort a friendly whack on his shoulder, and told Sam to go get a couple of frozen casseroles out of the freezer in the cellar. Gabe followed Sam down the stairs to help.
The one thing my kitchen is perfectly designed for is eating. The table is plenty big enough for a crowd, the microwave works, and the casseroles were delicious. Gabe and Gavril took turns telling heartwarming stories about Sonje. I was really starting to miss that lady.
Then Angie asked Gavril what he did before he became a famous rock star.
He said, “After I finished by BA, I studied at a seminary in Michigan. I intended to be a preacher after I finished my course.”
He took a sip from his water glass, and smiled. “My counselor gently suggested that I might spend my time more profitably in another line of work. To be honest, I moved towards the church in the first place because I loved to sing in the choir, but I picked a school that didn’t have one. It was a silly mistake.”
“Then what?” Angie said.
“Then I went to work at the publishing house that published Sonje’s books. I was an assistant editor when we met. I was in a garage band after work. I was way too old by then to be in a garage band, and our music was horrible. Sonje made some excellent suggestions and we got much better. We intended to do a few local gigs, just for the fun of it, but that’s not how things turned out.”
“Fame went to your head, did it?”
“Oh no. I was full of myself long before that.” He grinned at her. She grinned back.
There was one last thing I wanted to clear up. When everyone finished eating, I got up and went upstairs for my laptop. When I came back downstairs, I asked Mort for the name of the man who walked into the sheriff’s office earlier that day. He gave it to me and I looked up the name on Google.
Gavril was studiously examining his long fingers, so Sonje’s fiancé was not a secret to everyone.
I turned the laptop so Angie could see the photo in the article. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s the guy.”
I looked at Gavril, and waited. He looked at Gabe, and sighed. “Tom Masterman and Sonje had been seeing each other for about six months. They were introduced by one of the executives at her publishing house.”
I glanced at baby Grace, who was sitting on Emma’s lap. Then I shot a silent question to the musician, with raised eyebrows. He shook his head.
“Not what you think. I can give you the name of the person who introduced them. He can tell you when it was. I called Tom earlier, to express my condolences. He was upset, of course. He was driving back to the city when I called.”
Gabe was following this interchange with a great deal of interest.
His step-father said, “Son, your mother found someone that she loved very much, but she didn’t want him to end up in the gossip columns. She saw what happened every time I spoke to a woman in public and she didn’t want that to happen to Tom. He’s a good man, and he loved your mother. She only kept him a secret from you—from everyone—because of me and the reporters. I am sorry.”
Gabe reached for the laptop and pulled it to him. “I met him,” he said. “He took us to lunch a few weeks ago, and he talked about baseball. I don’t really like
baseball very much, but he does, and he likes to talk about it a lot. After lunch we all went to our house and had ice cream and then he left. He was OK. But you’re sure he’s not—”
His eyes darted to Grace.
“No, son. Those reporters made up the story about Grace not being my baby. They were just being mean. You can see why she didn’t want this man to be hounded by those people, don’t you? She was going to tell you this weekend.”
“That was her surprise?”
Gavril nodded.
Gabe closed the laptop. To bring the spirit of the gathering back up to a higher plane, Sam asked Gavril to tell us some more stories about Sonje, and Gabe was soon in a good mood again.
After dinner, Emma offered to take the baby home with her so Gavril could sleep without being disturbed. Gavril readily agreed, but I was surprised that Mort let her take the baby.
“There’s a baby seat in Mom’s car,” Gabe said. That started a conversation among the men, which the rest of us stayed out of. It was eventually agreed that Sam and Gavril would go across the street to remove the child seat from Sonje’s SUV and transfer it to Emma’s car.
When they came back inside, Josie gave little Grace a kiss on the nose. Gabe did the same, and Emma left with the baby and the baby supplies.
Mort looked at me sternly after she left. “You had better be right, young lady, or we just made a big mistake.”
I gave him a kiss on the cheek for calling me a young lady. “Should we call Rita and tell her that she and Pete don’t have to stay and guard Mildred any more?”
“No. Let Pete stay there. I think he’s rather fond of Mildred, and it gives him something to do besides wandering around his empty house.”
Sam offered to let Gavril and Gabe spend the night at his house, across town. “I’ll drive over there to show you the way and you can follow me. It isn’t far,” he said.
Angie had a better idea. “My place is right across the street. I have a spare room and a couch. You and Gabe are welcome to stay with me.”
Gavril accepted her invitation.
Mort got Gabe’s coat from the peg and handed it to him. Jocko paced. Gabe put on his coat, and Jocko barked. Then my dog pressed his shoulder against the boy’s legs, trying to herd him towards the stairs.
I said, “Gabe, Jocko is saying it’s time for bed, not time for walks. I think he wants you to stay here tonight.”
“Dad, can I? I can sleep on the couch.”
Gavril gave him permission to stay, everyone left, and the kitchen was suddenly, mercifully, quiet.
I went to the linen closet for two down comforters and sheets for the couch. Gabe crawled into his makeshift bed, still wearing my sweatpants and Sam’s purple Vikings sweatshirt.
TWENTY-TWO
After such a hard, stressful day, I was surprised that Gabe stayed awake after he crawled under the covers. He finally fell asleep around ten o’clock after Sam told us one of the stories his grandmother taught him. Jocko was lying next to Gabe, on the floor.
While Sam was in the shower, I pulled my jacket on over my long green chenille bathrobe and put on my wool hat. Then I walked out into the museum in my stocking feet, feeling the knots and grooves in the old worn planks of the floor. The full moon could still be seen at the very top of the curved window at the front of the building.
I sat on the loveseat under the Camelops and tried to find the right words for what I had to say to Sam. The kitchen door opened and closed, and Sam’s slippers flapped against the floor.
“Scoot over,” he said.
I scooted. Sam was wearing his big white hooded bathrobe, the one I bought him to celebrate our first full month together.
“It’s kind of cold out here,” he said. He pulled me to him, and I put my head on his shoulder. He stretched his head so he could see my face. “Is there a reason why we aren’t crawling into our nice warm bed?”
I hid my face in the terry cloth of his bathrobe for a second, and then resurfaced. He waited, giving me time.
“You had an affair with Carol Kramer, a long time ago.”
He bent his head again and used his big hand to move my chin so he could see my face in the cold moonlight. He let go of my chin and looked at the moon.
“I thought you knew that already. You can’t keep something like that a secret in a little town like this. But why are you bringing it up now? Do you think I’ll do that to you, because I spent time with Carol when I was married? Is that what you’re worried about?”
I shook my head. “No, that doesn’t worry me. It was 13 years ago, wasn’t it?”
He thought, probably looking at the big changes in his life, the events that stand out so you can count the years. “About that. It was before I ran for mayor.”
“And then you and Carol called off the relationship, and a month or two later, she got pregnant.”
He pulled the sash on his robe a little tighter, and put his feet under mine, trying to stay warm. “I felt so sorry for her after she lost the baby,” he said. “She broke up with me because she wanted to try one more time to make her marriage work, but she was so miserable, I might have offered to take her away from Harold if she’d given me even the slightest sign. It would have been a huge mistake, though. You shouldn’t get married just because you found another person who’s just as miserable as you are.”
I gritted my teeth and plowed into it. “The baby wasn’t stillborn. She gave it to Sonje.”
He looked at me, startled. Then he stood abruptly and started to pace, his slippers flapping against the floor. When he reached the dire wolf, he fiddled with the beast’s ear for a second or two, thinking, and then turned and headed towards the American cheetah. He held his arms tightly crossed over his chest and his head bowed. I could barely see him in the moonlight.
“Harold would never give away a son of his,” he said, his voice ragged with emotion. “He’s at every little league game, every hockey game, every school play. He’s crazy about his boys. Tell me the rest.”
“She and Harold signed away their parental rights, and a lawyer made all the arrangements. Carol didn’t want her husband to know Sonje adopted the baby, so she told everyone that she and Sonje weren’t speaking to each other any more.”
He stopped pacing and turned towards me. Both he and the cheetah were just black shapes with the moon behind them. “Gabe is mine? That’s what you’re saying?”
I nodded, and then realized that he couldn’t see me. “I’m pretty sure, yes.”
“That’s why your mother was mad at me? Because she thought I gave away my son?”
“No. She—”
“All these years, and I didn’t—I should have known. Am I incredibly stupid? Is that why Carol could lie to me about my own child, and I never even thought to question her?”
“She chose a great mother for the baby.”
He walked between the cheetah and the dire wolf, then back again. “She had no right to do that without telling me.”
“Legally, though—”
“I’m not talking about legal. I’m talking about what’s right. Of course she couldn’t bring the child into that house if Harold knew it wasn’t his. But did she think I’m the kind of man who can’t be trusted to do the right thing towards my own son?”
He turned and walked to the front of the building, out the door, out into the snow in his slippers and bathrobe. He walked past the mammoth into the parking lot. Snow started flying as he kicked at it with his feet, twirling and kicking and stomping. Then he stopped and looked up at the moon, and howled—a long, mournful sound that broke my heart.
Jocko pushed his nose into my thigh. I caught my breath and turned my head. Gabe was standing next to the loveseat, wrapped up in one of the down comforters from the couch. “I thought you were asleep. How long have you been listening?”
“From the start,” he said.
I groaned. “And Jocko didn’t tell me?” I looked down at my dog who was watching Sam pace back and forth on the porch, jus
t outside the front windows.
Gabe sat down on the loveseat next to me and Jocko jumped up to sit on his other side, sandwiching Gabe between us. I pulled the bottom of the comforter over my robe and my feet and put my arm around Gabe’s shoulder. We watched Sam, who had moved back out to the parking lot, trudging through the snow with his head hung low. He was talking to himself and gesturing with his hands.
“How come he’s mad? He doesn’t have to do anything, if he doesn’t want to,” Gabe said, his voice shaking. “I mean, if he doesn’t want to be my dad, it’s OK.” He ran a finger under his nose.
“He’s not mad, Gabe. He’s mourning for the twelve years that he didn’t know you.”
“Thirteen years, almost.”
“Yes. Thirteen.” I gave the boy’s shoulder a big squeeze. Sam was standing on the porch now, looking at the enormous full moon above the mammoth’s tusks. He looked down and pushed some snow off the porch with his foot.
Gabe said, “So why was your mom angry at Sam? You didn’t say.”
“She wasn’t angry. She was scared for Sam. If he found out he was your real dad, and then your other dad took you away, Sam would be really unhappy. Josie loves that big guy like a son, you know. And parents don’t want their kids to get hurt.”
“My first mother didn’t care. She gave me away.”
“She cared more than you could ever know. She found a mother for you who could give you a safe place to live, and so much more love than she ever could. She mourned her lost baby for months. It wasn’t right for her to lie to Sam—but except for that, giving you away was probably the hardest thing—and maybe the best thing—that she’s ever done in her whole entire life.
“Besides, if she hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t have known Sonje—your real mom. You wouldn’t have wanted that, would you?”
He shook his head. Tears were falling, unnoticed, down his cheeks. “She was the best ever. It’s not fair, though. I’m feeling really sad because she died, but I’m feeling really happy because I found my real dad. Can you feel two different things at once?”